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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Superstars

One of amazing things that has happened to me since I joined the educational Twitter community is realizing that some of the educators I have worked with were secretly famous. Well, not exactly famous, but were doing things that I think are pretty remarkable and were connecting with people from across the country and around the world. There are two that really stood out to me. The first is a person that I had the pleasure of working with at Warren Woods Public Schools. Todd Bloch was a middle school teacher who was very active in the district and was one of those teachers who served on several district committees. It was in this capacity that I got to know Todd. He was a friendly person and seemed like a dedicated and enthusiastic educator, but I hadn't connected with him since coming to Livonia. Four years later, I finally entered the Twitter realm. While there, I stumbled across a familiar name. However, on twitter, Todd wasn't the mild mannered Clark Kent of the classroom, he was a full-fledged Superman of the Twittershere, connecting with thousands of educators, leading educational chats, and most impressively writing blogs and giving video broadcasts that humbled me as an educator. I thought, "Who knew Todd was a super star"??

Not long after my discovery of Todd's super powers, I started following tweets and chat ideas from a secondary administrator in our own district, Matt Moll. I was impressed with the way he navigated chats and his ideas and thoughts were inspiring to me. I had only known Matt from a handful of meetings as a pleasant guy who worked in the secondary. I had no idea that he too, like Todd, was a Twitter superstar! He was connected to hundreds of educators and was sharing out ideas and projects that I didn't even know were happening in our district. From online student portfolios to inspiring blog posts shared out at the national level, Matt was showing me what could be done when committed to a cause. Again, I was humbled at the great things happening unknown to me by my fellow colleagues.

I share these stories not to flatter, but rather to share how they became a role model to me and also challenged my thinking. I wanted to connect with educators the way they were, I wanted to blog and inspire the way they were, and I wanted to share out the great things they and other educators are doing. More importantly, they made me think of what great things our students could do through the use of technology. What quiet student might become a talented writer through his blogging? What student that I may have overlooked might be a creative genius just waiting for the technology or opportunity to create and share her thoughts? I felt like I was seeing these two educators in a whole new light and it made me think of new ways to look at our students and my colleagues. What talents do they have outside of school that I don't know about because I haven't asked? I'm making a commitment to start listening and observing more carefully to my colleagues and helping our students have the tools to share their stories. Perhaps, I will discover even more superstars if I look closely!

Check out the inspiring and creative ideas from these two great educators: